Badass Cape

"Deathurge claims to be an embodiment of the latent self-destructive impulses in all sentient beings, appearing to certain people who have lost their will to live and grants them oblivion. [...] He also claims to be protecting the universe from "the chaotic blight of aberration called life", a questionable attitude indeed. Spiffy cape, though."

—Bring On The Bad Guys

"Then he looked over at me, and y'know what he said? "You can't handle the cape." And he took it! He took my cape, Skeets! Do you know how it feels whenSuperman tells you you can't handle a cape? Not good..."

Capes have the obvious effect of making the wearer look larger and more imposing. Thus artists often use them as a way to make characters look Badass. Just look at Batman over there. He just wouldn't look half as awesome without his cape.

The reasons for this are many. The color might provide a fetching counterpoint to the rest of their clothes, or else blend with them to give the wearer a dynamic silhouette. It may make them look even bigger than they really are. In the right conditions they can wave in the wind and look dramatic and striking. Lack of wind can be accommodated with a Cape Swish.

But the main reason for this is that in the days of circuses, the strongmen often wore tights and a cape, thus the association with toughness in characters. The trope was then grandfathered into the present day by Superheroes.

This can apply to any character, whether it be a hero, sidekick, villain, and it doesn't even have to be a superhero setting.

This can also count if the actual capes have some sort of abilities. Thus the capes themselves are badass.

A humongous version of said cape was also used by the Super TTGL in The Movie. And by humongous, we mean the biggest damn cape ever conceived of in fiction or otherwise.

Crossbone Gundam features Gundam-sized capes that provide two practical purposes; stealth [the capes are black, most of the series takes place in space] and a special coating that lets them absorb a few beam hits before being destroyed, sort of like extra ablative armour.

In Digimon V-Tamer 01, an Omnimon effectively weaponised his cape by throwing it in the face of his opponents, blinding them long enough to utterly thrash them.

Piccolo from Dragonball Z, one of the best examples of this can be found in movie special 8, especially when Piccolo's heroic save of Gohan from certain death(at the time)

Piccolo's cape is attached to heavy weighted shoulder pads. He uses it for training and takes it off to fight. Gohan gets one just like it for the Cell Games.

Garlic Jr in the, you guessed it, Garlic Jr Saga.

Éclair from Kiddy Grade combines badassery and gracefulness by Roof Hopping while wearing one, as seen in a flashback.

While D of Vampire Hunter D is already a badass alone with his skill, his cape only doubles, if not triples that level of coolness. And Meirlink from the second movie deserves a mention as well. He must have studied Batman, because not only could he glide with the thing, he block a freaking sword strike with it!

Space Pirate Captain Harlock wears a cape. Oh boy does he ever. It's often very hard to tell what ratio of man to cape he is, but he's definitely all pirate.

Adol Christin gets a badass cape near the beginning of the anime Ys II: Castle in the Heavens. What makes it so badass? Well, for one, it's purple. Second, it lets him use magic - specifically, shooting fireballs from his hand. Turns out he uses this more than he does his sword.

Dr. Black Jack keeps a lot of his medical tools in his cape, such as scalpels that he can whip out and throw at people.

Rurouni Kenshin: Hiko Seijuro's cape helped make him into a badass, even during peacetime. There are springs at the shoulders that exerts a counter-pressure on his body in order to maintain not only his strength, but the Hiten Mitsurugi style so he won't release all of its power on enemies.

Spider-Man: Mysterio usually has a purple cape to go with his 'fishbowl' and green outfit, which both helps negate the cheesiness of the headgear and let him look more, well, mysterious. He's also got things attached to hold it on that have eyes on them.

Robin always wears a cape. Nightwing doesn't. The presence of a cape has however been given several justifications in canon beyond the theatrics; it contains armor and you can grab someone who's falling from the roof of a train.

Nightwing: Huh. Makes me rethink the cape issue.

That, and Batman's cape lets him glide in some versions.

Batman Forever had Batman covering himself with his fire-proofed cape in order to shield himself from the flames of a burning building that Two-Face trapped him in. Only Batman could have pulled this off.

Batman's cape is so awesome that it actually has the ability to change size. (Particularly evident in Batman the Animated Series) When he's investigating for clues inside, the cape comes down to his knees, but when posing on a rooftop dramatically, it grows longer than his whole body . Now that's badass!

Batman's cape has always been badass more or less. It's resistant to fire, acid, bullets, chemicals and has weighted ends to beat people senseless with, and makes it much harder to determine any vulnerable spot. Sometimes, it's detachable to deal with situations when its caught by something or someone. Of course, this is a direct result of Bats being Crazy Prepared.

Not to mention that this troper always found the cape to be an essential part of his scare tactic against criminals. Which is scarier when you can't see any details: a guy standing on a rooftop, or a GIANT BAT ABOUT TO EAT YOUR SOUL.

It's an all-purpose cape. It's intimidating, (gives a giant bat silhouette, which is a big part of the scare tactic) hold weapons, (with the weighted ends and the fireproofing) and overall, he looks kind of silly without it.

Superman. Duh. Not so much badass as just plain awesome, though. Plus, in some incarnations, it's said that the entire planet of Krypton wore badass capes.

In Johnny Saturn, imposing characters such as Utopian and Tactical have badass capes. Elect, the original superhero, wears a cape over a cloak! Of course, he is the source for a great many characters in the Johnny Saturn/Spire City World.

Storm from X-Men most of the time. Her capes are usually also attatched to her braclets, to the point where it's practically a definitive piece of her design.

As did Doctor Strange, with the added cool factor that the cape granted flight powers.

As well as DC equivalent Dr Fate. Both Fate and Strange's capes are often shown billowing and wisping about as though they're enchanted to fluctuate in size and length which is likely for both characters.

Subverted hard in Watchmen, where Hollis Mason recounts that Dollar Bill's cape got him killed: It was caught in a revolving door when he tried to prevent a bank robbery, making him an easy target for the gun-toting robbers. What makes it even more tragic is that the costume was designed by people sponsoring him for public appeal. Mason speculated that if he designed it himself he may have realized how bad an idea it was. Oddly, both Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice wore capes easily twice the length of Dollar Bill's, yet never seemed to suffer any consequences.

In Fables there's the Witching Cloak, which makes its wearer all but invulnerable, is (nearly) indestructible itself, and allows its wearer to teleport anywhere (even between worlds), carry huge loads, and change form.

Mister Miracle has a large green cape. The original MM costume was that of a circus performer, which explains its presence, but when Scott Free took up the mantle, his cape was for more than just looks. It's been an Improvised Parachute and a portable shield and shelter against all sorts of attacks. Its size means that it can be wrapped around the wearer (and maybe another person or two) to provide all-round protection if needed.

The Master of Magnetism, Magneto, rocks an imposing purple/red cape in almost every incarnation.

Fan Works

Inverted in With Strings Attached. To hide his permanent metamorphosis into a muscular winged demigod, John gets a magical cloak that makes him look like his skinny normal self. It's mostly a pain in the ass for him, as it snags on things, it's hot, and it gets smelly.

Before that, he spent much of the adventure wearing an elven cloak like the rest of the Fellowship, but the cape on his King of Gondor getup is much more badass.

Etienne Navarre of Ladyhawke is the film's unequivocal hero, yet dresses like a stereotypical villain. Naturally, he looks extremely badass in his ensemble, and sports a magnificent flowing black cape with red lining to complete the look.

Dollars Trilogy: The Man With No Name's poncho is the definite western example.

Literature

The eponymous Mistborn of the Mistborn trilogy wear these. They have all sorts of nifty adaptions that just make them so freaking awesome. They are the status symbol of the 'verse.

In Soon I Will Be Invincible, supervillain Dr Impossible admits that his cape gets in the way during the inevitable fight scene, and is uncomfortable in hot weather, but feels that the psychological advantage imparted by a dramatically billowing cape outweighs the disadvantages.

Erast Fandorin often wears a cape. It's nothing extraordinary, really; this is late 19th century Russia. Still, notable for the movie version of State Chancellor, wherein he uses said cape to catch bullets.

This is even more cool because they are enchanted so that they never become stained or dirty, including the mention that blood splattered on the cloaks during combat just flows off the fabric. This means that no matter how hard or dirty the fight, a Warden's cloak of office is always recognizable to ensure their authority.

Pontius Glaw from Eisenhorn, in his final "form", wears a cape so badass it's made of many, many small blades. When a Redshirt gets in the way of the cape, he... crumbles. Sort of.

Deconstructed in Simon R. Green's Hawk and Fisher novels, where the BadassBattle Couple are obliged to wear capes as part of their Watch uniforms; however, Hawk hates his because it gets in the way during fights. He puts up with wearing one for Fisher's sake, but seizes any plausible opportunity to "accidentally" abandon or destroy his (smothering fires, ditching it when it's pinned to the wall by a crossbow bolt, etc). A subversion, as going capeless doesn't diminish Hawk's Badass Quotient one bit.

In Starfighters of Adumar, Red Flight ends up wearing Adumari clothing and Wes Janson, the showman of the group, goes with a massive cape with glowing nebulous shapes on it. Later, in a fight, he whips it off and uses it to entangle his opponent's weapon, later grousing that he liked that cape. His friend assures him that they'll find him something even more flashy.

In The Shattered World, Kan Konar the cloakfighter is a Badassbecause of his cape. His fighting style is one that traditionally employs the cloak as both a weapon and a defense: it's got razor-sharp bone shards in its hems, blinding-bright phoenix feathers concealed in its lining, and a strangling-cord clasp. And that's just the start of what it's good for.

The Magna Defender could also count as a Legacy Character in series, the season was in anyway.

In the Mork and Mindy episode 'Watcher of Earth,' an alien named Xerko came to Earth and challenged Mork to a battle. Before the battle, he put on a Badass Cape... only to tear it off in an exaggerated twirl.

Music

The video for Pink Floyd's song "High Hopes" features … well, you can't doubt that cape's epic. Anyone know how they were able to keep cranes and such out of the shot? There's NO way that guy could actually walk in that thing without some help.

Super Robot Wars gives us the AussenseiterTrombe, a giant robot with an equally giant Badass Cape. One of its' attacks involves ripping the cape off and throwing it at an enemy to conceal their vision before blowing them away with its' twin hand cannons.

The Vysaga also wears one, complete with plenty of dramatic swirling and whatnot.

RuneScape has a variety of normal capes that every player can wear, but there are some special ones that stand out, like the Fire cape which is made out of lava and has its own animation, and is given to players who beat the second hardest boss in the entire game. Also it has the Skill capes, given to players who max the level in any skill, which has the ability to increase the skill level of the player who operates it to 100 temporarily, and come with their own emote.

Ezio in Assassin's Creed II has a cape that actually does something - it decreases his notoriety so he doesn't get in near as much trouble with the law.

More specifically, he has several capes. The Plain Cape is just for looks; the Medici Cape sets infamy to 0 when you're in Florence or Tuscany; there's also another cape for Venice. Those three are all gotten at various points in the story. There are also, apparently two "secret" capes: one you only get during some festival; and the Auditore Cape, rewarded at the end of the Feather sidequest, which does the opposite of the others (that is, infamy is set to max in all cities).

On a more practical note, it also helps to conceal most of his weaponry when he's walking in public.

Yo and Bo of Yo-Jin-Bo wear capes "because they are cool," and frequently mock Jin's fashion sense because he doesn't wear one.

Most noticeable in Dissidia Final Fantasy, where every character from Final Fantasy VI and earlier has some sort of cape in at least one of their outfits. The most Badass Cape arguably belongs to Golbez of Final Fantasy IV, so large it passes into All-Encompassing Mantle, whirls and flaps in the air with every movement he makes, and his block and intro animations are Cape Swishes.

Given the 'strongman' description above, is it any surprise to hear that Street Fighter's Zangief has an opening animation where he starts standing shrouded in a cape, then flings it away?

M. Bison wears a cape as well, which he sometimes wears during actual fights.

Utsuho from Touhou is a nuclear powered hell raven that wears a starry night cape over her wings. Fellow Final Boss Byakuren also wears a cape, if a considerably less mind-bending one. Then there's Wriggle, but, as a stage one boss, she's not exactly badass, with the cape mearly standing in for her insect wings.

From PC-98 land is Yumemi Okazaki, who wears a black and red cape.

Batman: Arkham Asylum, of course. Not only does it look badass, it lets you glide, either to cover ground quickly or to kick someone in the face and you can slap someone in the face with it to stun them.

Big Bad vampire Night of Wallachia from the Type-Moon fighting game Melty Blood uses his cape as his primary weapon.

At low and middle levels, the capes in World of Warcraft often adhere to this trope; the longer the cape, the more badass the wearer is likely to be (as long capes can't be worn by low-level characters).

Web Original

Shroud, in the Whateley Universe. But she's animated matter, so she can really make her cape billow, since it's part of her.

Madras, from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, had telekinetic control over cloth (and only over cloth), so he wore a costume that included a ten-foot long cape made of canvas. And he used it as a weapon.

Western Animation

The title character of Cybersix wears a long, flowing one that dramatically blows behind her while she's Roof Hopping during the night.

Darkwing Duck considers this a basic part of being a crimefighter, along with his hat and mask.

Parodied in Fairly Oddparents. Dark Laser tries to lure Timmy to the side of evil and one of his arguements is that he gets to wear a cape and that "chicks dig the cape". Laser himself also does look much more menacing with his cape.

In Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders many characters are wearing capes, but only the baddie, Lady Kale, has a truly badass one: huge, flowing in dramatic wind and motion, and used by her in a theatrically evil manner. (Not so much badass when it lands over her head, though.)